Southern California -- this just in

Proposal would require restaurants to disclose immigration checks

April 24, 2012 | 9:41
am

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal Tuesday that would require restaurants to inform customers whether they perform immigration background checks on their employees.

The measure sponsored by Supervisor Neil Derry would color-code the A, B or C grade cards that restaurants receive during their annual health inspection and display in their windows.

Under the proposal, a green-colored card would indicate the restaurant uses the federal database E-Verify to check whether its employees are eligible to work in the Unites States.

A red-colored card would indicate the restaurant does not use it.

In a press statement, Derry explained the proposal is an effort to protect public health. Illegal immigrants, the supervisor said, have not been subjected to any of the health examinations, testing and vaccination standards legal immigrants and visitors are required to undergo.

“Public health is jeopardized when we allow restaurants to employ illegal aliens that have not been subjected to the same battery of tests and vaccination requirements we demand of legal immigrants and visitors,” Derry said. “Customers literally place their health in the hands of anonymous individuals and are vulnerable to numerous communicable diseases more commonly found in people born outside this country.”

Derry said the measure is a way to circumvent the “out-of-touch” state Legislature that passed a law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, that prohibits the state, cities and counties from mandating that private employers use E-Verify.

Last fall, Derry proposed an ordinance that would require anyone seeking a food service industry job to be screened for immigration status before a food-handler card could be obtained. He withdrew the proposal over concerns about its legality with the passage of a statewide prohibition.